Rachel House On What Inspired Her To Climb 'The Mountain'
FAMED new zealand actress rachel house spoke with filmspeak about her first directorial outing, ‘the mountain’.
Actor-turned director Rachel House sat down with FilmSpeak to discuss the development and response to her debut feature, The Mountain, which recently had its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in early September. The film follows the journey of three young New Zealanders as they seek solace, belonging, and friendship as they embark on an adventure to see the Taranaki mountain.
FilmSpeak: Hello Rachel, thanks for taking the time to speak with me today. Congratulations on the film, it’s really great, and I think it’ll perform very well at the festival.
Rachel House: Thank you so much, that is lovely to hear.
FS: I adore how fully-realized the three protagonists in this film are. Despite being so young, they are still defined characters with nuances and personalities beyond just being kids along for an adventure. How did the ideas for these three characters and their quirks come about for you?
RH: Well, I have to give absolute kudos to Tom Furniss, who wrote a very fantastic script, with these three characters in it. They were three little boys, and they wanted to conquer a mountain, and the mountain didn’t have a name, and so that was where I started reworking it. I will say that Mallory, and his goal to have an adventure and gain friends is an element that remained from Tom Furniss’ script, and so has Bronco, who really wanted the attention of his dad, and to be loved. For Sam, who I reworked as well, she really wanted to connect with her cultural identity, so that’s what sort of changed, and also Bronco, I had to completely rework so that we had access to the Māori culture from all viewpoints.
FS: That ties into my next question really well. Those themes of connection in this film, especially cultural connection to the Māori culture and environment. For Sam, it’s a journey of discovery and faith, and for Bronco, he is very proud and knowledgeable of his connections to his culture. How was it incorporating this cultural element and were you ever worried about it, in terms of maybe struggling to write from your own perspective to represent such a vast and beautiful culture in this singular point of view here?
RH: Absolutely, that was the big work. Kind of rewriting, re-working Bronco in particular. I wanted to create a character that was familiar to us, as Māori, and he is. He’s one of many extraordinary tamariki (children) who have grown up knowing their language and their cultures because of the language schools that are being established, over the last sort of 30-40 years, and so these kids that are around now are a product of that. So I really needed to sort of create a character identifiable to us Māori but also helped people who didn't know our Māori culture, navigate their way into this culture and this story. Bronco is based on many Māori leaders that I have known, and admired, who treat the environment like family. There’s a very old, deep, indigenous understanding of how nature and the environment is our family, we are all connected. Ultimately, Bronco is just a kind of reflection of the many wonderful Māori children that are around these days, thanks to the wonderful work that is being done to bring back the strength of our culture and language. It’s all a generational effort.
FS: How did your own experiences wearing many hats in the creative fields, such as acting, inform your decision making or creative process on this film, and vice versa, is there anything you’ve learned from directing that gives you a new perspective for future acting roles?
RH: I did a lot of theatre direction before I went to film school. I went to film school pretty late, I was 35 when I went, which is pretty old for many people to go to a film school. I’d done drama school already, I’d been directing for theatre, and I just thought, I want to go somewhere else in the world, where film is part of the culture. So I went off to film school to do that. What I will say, is that I was able to be an acting coach on many film sets, and when you’re an acting coach, you have to be on set all the time. So you get to see how it all works, and get to see how a director works, very closely, and I’d say I got a lot of knowledge and wisdom from being on set as an acting coach. Also, you know, as an actor, the thing is, you kind of zone out, and as an actor you kind of need to make everybody ‘go away’ a bit, so I didn’t really learn much there, so I didn’t learn much as a director from acting. But I definitely learned from being an acting coach and from my time directing theatre, because when you’re a theatre director, it’s all the same thing. You have to learn to direct performance, and work together with your heads of department to create a tone, and an atmosphere, collectively, and you need to go deep into the story to understand it. So I felt pretty well prepared to make this film.
FS: Awesome. I love that this film, despite featuring youth, is not afraid to handle heavy topics, or result straight to a picture-perfect happy ending. Another wonderful thing about this film is how there are so many instances of journeys being parallel. How difficult was it to conceptualize a satisfying and logical ending to this remarkable journey?
RH: I was talking to someone just before, and she was saying, “You know the final image, with the mountain, and the children walking into the distance, I think what it leaves us with is a message that our time is fleeting, and the mountains remain.” So, look after this world, and this environment, so that we have a legacy for our children and future generations to look after.
FS: Is there anything that you hope audiences take away from The Mountain?
RH: Just enjoy nature, and how extraordinary it is. I feel like it doesn’t even have to be spiritual, or cultural to connect with it. I think if you really examine it, even scientifically, you will see that nature is wise because its had to adapt and change to the environment of the world it’s in. I think just appreciating how precious and vast nature is, particularly for kids to have that as a takeaway, would be wonderful.